Sweet Jesus and Christian Anger

A chocolate Jesus is, in my opinion, a very appropriate image of Easter. A Christian festival, remembering the central event in that religion, the death of Jesus, which has become all about bunnies and chocolate.

Socially conservative Christians are (predictably) outraged by such an exhibition, and an all to familiar exercise in anger is performed for the public.

This TV interview shocked me however. Bill Donohue, president of the Catholic league, refers to artists as losers, rejects the artist's claim to being a Christian with the words "Oh, you're a Christian. Please. Don't lie about it", and even makes what could be understood as a veiled death threat: "you're lucky I'm not like the Taliban, because you would lose more than your head".

What struck me as interesting, however, was Donohues response to the question of what offended him about the sculpture: "asking the public to come in and eat Jesus, with his genitals exposed, during Holy Week".

With that one sentence Donohue, in my opinion, completely justified the exhibition. Didn't Jesus tell us to eat his body, and wasn't Jesus crucified naked during 'holy week'? And haven't we made a mockery of Jesus' very offensive death, by making it a chocolate feast?

For a good comment on the chocolate Jesus outrage and the Donohue interevew see: The Spectrum Blog.